A Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Glenn points us to an amendment proposal designed to force Congress to operate under the same laws that apply to citizens.  It’s an interesting idea, albeit one that might contradict the portion of Article I, Section VI exempting Congress from arrest during session.

But since we’re on the subject of Amendments that impart fairness (or rather, equality), here’s my proposal:

1.  Congress shall levy no tax on individual citizens except that it be applied equally to all and without threshold, exemption, deduction, credit, exception, or limitation of any kind.

2.  The Federal government shall be required to operate without an annual fiscal deficit except in years containing a period of declared war, not to exceed four consecutive years or to exceed a total of four years in any consecutive ten year period.

Discuss.

DADTDC

While I was on active duty this past summer the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” commission came to Stuttgart soliciting input from service members.  A friend asked my opinion of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  My response?  “Don’t Care.”

The military, along with the nation at large, has much bigger concerns than whether or not one to two percent of the population could be excluded from the military.  Furthermore, since it was obvious that eventually the restriction was going to fall, the sturm and drang associated with the issue had become a distraction. 

The one thing I had hoped was that the issue would be decided by Congress.  I got my wish.  DADT was, afterall, Congress’ law.  To defer the decision to an unelected ideological judge, or to rule by executive decree that the President was not going to enforce the law of the land, would have set dangerous precedents that, a la Roe v. Wade, would not have laid the issue to a final resting place.  Last night Don’t Ask Don’t Tell died.  Better that than for it to have lived on with life support.

Electric Sliding in Reverse

Below is the transcript of a television ad running in the DC area for NRG Electric:

The future is here. 

At NRG we’re providing clean energy and now charging stations to make the electric car a reality.  Kind of makes you want to boogie woogie, doesn’t it? 

NRG: moving clean energy forward.

The music accompanying the ad?  Marcia Griffiths’ Electric Boogie. 

Yes, not only did NRG choose, what is perhaps the worst wedding reception standard since the Chicken Dance, they selected a song from deep in the heart of the late 70s disco era–the most regrettable half-decade of American 20th Century history–to demonstrate how NRG is moving energy forward.

As Glenn likes to say, a repeat of the Carter era is starting to look like a best case scenario these days.

Wiki Idiocy

I got this message yesterday from Army Reserve leadership:

As a security reminder to all Soldiers, individuals should not access the WikiLeaks web site to view, download, or print any information which is potentially classified. All personnel are reminded that the accessing of classified information on an unclassified network, either on government or privately owned computers, could constitute a security violation or place our national security at risk.In accordance with Executive Order 13526, classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure and will remain classified until it is formally declassified by an appropriate authority. Therefore, information on the internet which is or appears to be classified should be handled as such until it is properly declassified. The unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified information may result in termination of security clearance, termination of employment, or prosecution.

You, on the other hand–assuming that you aren’t a military member, government employee, or holder of a current security clearance–are not prohibited by this Executive Order from accessing classified information via wikileaks.

Does anyone else find this to be like the idiocy of restrictive gun laws: 

If only uncleared personnel are able to access classified information, then the only people with access to classified information will be those without security clearances.

Horse.  Stampede.  Barndoor.

UPDATE:

Jay made the analogy to finding a classified document on a copying machine.  You’re not permitted to read it.  But the analogy, as he pointed out, is extreme.  A copying machine in a secure facility is not the internet.

Question:  If instead of Wikileaks, it was the Washington Post that had printed/posted these documents, would it then be open source information?  Yes.  Now that’s not to say that someone with a clearance would then be permitted to confirm the documents’ authenticity.  But I don’t think you’d see a push to prevent cleared people from reading the newspaper.  The regulations haven’t caught up to the fact that whether it’s a website or a newspaper, they’re both open sources of information.

As I said in my previous post on the subject:

This is really the same problem that has long confronted recording artists, the motion picture industry, and other creators of intellectual content:  electronic data is easily copied, easily shared, and not easily restricted to paying customers or rightful recipients.  The RCIA and MPA have had more than a decade to formulate new business models to the threat of file sharing . . . with varying degrees of success.  The federal government is late to recognizing this as a problem, but has the advantage of being able to quickly learn from those who came first.

Dutch Auction Unemployment Benefits

Why do we not employ a Dutch Auction methodology to unemployment benefits? 

A Dutch auction is the opposite of the auction you usually see.  Instead of multiple bidders bidding up the price, the seller starts at a high price and drops at regular intervals.  As the price comes down, the first bidder to accept the lowered price, wins the item.

Let’s face it:  your value to an employer after two years of unemployment is considerably below your last salary.  So why shouldn’t your unemployment benefits match the fall?

The way Dutch Auction unemployment benefits would work is that you would get a certain percentage of your previous salary for the first four weeks of unemployment  Every four weeks after that the percentage would fall.  At some point the unemployed will accept employment because its better than unemployment.  Furthermore, it encourages unemployment of a shortened duration since that earlier period is the one when one is likely to get the greatest amount of “free” money.

Thoughts?